Wind-Up Toy
by merryfortune
Summary: Playmaker loses to Lightning and Lightning erases him. The consequences are unforeseen.


**Wind Up Toy**

Playmaker – no, Yusaku – opened his eyes.

He was alive. But he didn't feel it. He didn't feel dead either and he thought that he was quite accustomed to such a feeling, but this wasn't it either. He wasn't breathing. He wasn't blinking, and he couldn't feel his fingers.

But he could still see. He could still think and articulate thoughts. He couldn't speak them. He tried to move his head, so he could gauge his surroundings better but alas, he was robbed of such a privilege in this state. Whatever that state may be. So, he had to understand from what he could see and from what he could see, he could not understand.

It was white. Pure white. A brilliant and blinding white which was harsh on the eyes, but he couldn't squint so he could fair it better. He didn't know where he was, but he was on the floor. He felt like he was sitting, legs sprawled apart and arms by his side; like a porcelain doll on a shelf.

He sifted through his memories and immediately, a great sorrow pierced his heart like the edge of a blade. A specific blade. Yusaku could vividly recall the blade which had hurt him. It had belonged to Armatos Legio Legatus Legionis, Lightning's ace monster and the realisation caused him to crash.

His mind blanked. His eyes widened but he couldn't move. He couldn't writhe in pain as phantom electricity bolted through his body, through his veins and he couldn't stop it. He couldn't rationalise it as the echoes of memories from a decade past. They felt fresh and real, even though he knew otherwise but he couldn't bring his body to behave as such.

Yusaku wanted so dearly and desperately to open his mouth and scream in agony but he couldn't. His suffering was all contained to the realm of his mind and behind closed lips in an unbreathing body.

He was supposed to be dead. That wasn't even a hyperbole borne of his trauma. That was a fact. Lightning was supposed to have killed him because he had lost the duel. Yusaku's mind flashed to the thoughts of his comrades – Soulburner, Blue Maiden, Ghost Girl, Ai, Flame, Aqua, Kusanagi – where were they?

Were they…?

Yusaku could not bring himself to think such thoughts. They choked out before they could even finish themselves. He could feel his eyes brimming with tears – hot, sorrowful – and yet he could not cry. They wouldn't well up and streak down his unfeeling face. Instead, he had to stew with these emotions so desperate to escape him.

"Oh? You're awake. Good."

A cold voice pierced the room and in a blink of yellow light, Jin appeared before him and his arm bore Lightning. He stood tall and arrogant despite his diminutive size and cartoonish appearance as an Ignis. As they approached, the whiteness which had encapsulated him dropped. Like a curtain, unveiling a façade and Yusaku was shown the truth of where he was. Lightning's hideout. The castle. His chest tightened as he realised what he was. Captured. A prisoner of war.

"I have decided that I have use for the Origins… well, most of them. With Earth dead, I see no use in collecting his – not to mention, his happens to be allied with the Knights of Hanoi and that does not suit me." Lightning said.

Yusaku listened. His eyes sharp and he tried to project all his scathing hatred outwards. He intended to externalise all the rage inside of him, but his expression was emotionless. His mouth was stern and his brow level.

"I have decided that in order to have the rest of the Ignis oblige my will, I will use their Origins as a bargaining chip. After all, Ai, Flame, Aqua are… unnaturally attached to theirs. I don't understand; they want to be together forever, and I am providing a method to such a goal, and yet? They reject me."

Yusaku wanted to cry out. He wanted to ask questions and make his voice known but he possessed no such ability within him. And he was drawing closer and closer to the void that Jin was no doubt within. After all, this was the torment he was enduring and had endured for so long. He wished he could have done things quicker or better, but he couldn't see any hope in hindsight.

"You know, I see point in collecting remnants of the past." Lightning mused. "Perhaps this solution to that problem is better. After all, when humans are annihilated, we ought to honour the six who had birthed us. Doctor Kogami may have created us but you… our Origins… are so much truer than he as our creator."

Lightning paused and stared up at Jin. His eyes squinted.

"He's happy, you know." Lightning commented. "He's happy to be my servant. This is an increase of quality of life for him, actually. No pain, no memories, no obligation to reply to questions which regardless of intention, however good, were always rhetorical, no annoyances from the uncaring, outside world – he's truly at peace."

Yusaku, again, wanted to scream out. That had to be wrong. That was Kusanagi that Lightning was talking about. He had no doubt in his mind that Lightning was turning implications unto Kusanagi, Jin's kind older brother who had taken him in as well. Those had to be lies. Surely Jin, who Kusanagi described as sweet and gentle, did not hold such cruel despair in his heart that he would forsake even his brother who had laboured to give him as much love as he could in the aftermath of the Lost Incident and wanted nothing more than to see him heal?

His eyes watered, and his mouth was dry. His throat was hoarse and yet, the rest of him was so unfeeling and uncaring and numb that Yusaku could barely feel like he was attached to a body at all. His heart wrenched.

"And he is even happier now that he can have a human companion in his bliss." Lightning continued.

Yusaku's head reeled. Human companion? Bliss?

"He gets lonely with just us and the other AIs. But, make no mistake, my choice of collecting you, Origin of the Dark Ignis, and the others is not for affection for my own Origin. It is a benefit, perhaps, but not an intention." Lightning said.

Lightning stepped off of Jin's Duel Disc. He then walked, unnaturally so, up Jin's arm and at angles which were impossible. He was eerie in his movements, however fine-tuned and straight-backed they were. He arrived upon Jin's shoulder and looked away.

"Unfortunately, I must keep you two here. I have other arrangements that need to be made." Lightning said, and he snapped his fingers.

In a dash of light, Bohman and Haru made themselves known.

"Bohman, Haru? I will accompany you both without Jin. I need to wean myself of these humans lest I become too reliant on them, but I have tasks for you both and we have inspections that need to be made."

"Understood." Haru chirruped.

Bohman nodded. He silently offered his arm and Lightning made the switch. He found a new podium upon Bohman's Duel Disc and from there, he would lord over his precious humans in his collection. Haru glanced over his shoulder at Yusaku and smiled an insidious smile before he, and the others, pardoned themselves and left in another brink of light.

Yusaku feared that the world would become white again, but it did not. Instead, he was still left on the floor and with Jin who staggered towards him. His movements weren't as controlled now that Lighting had left him. It was like watching a wind-up toy take jagged steps towards him and eventually, he had no energy left. He crashed onto Yusaku. It was as though he were unable to maintain his own weight upon his feet.

He went head first against Yusaku and both of them moved. Not in pain, just in physics. Inertia. Jin's movements were like a crash-test dummy in real time. Yusaku was just reacting as his body was pushed by outside forces. They became entwined. Almost in farce of an embrace. And Yusaku's head was pushed downwards by what remained of the force Jin had enacted upon him and he looked down on Jin.

His hand was on his chest. His eyes were closed, like he was sleeping, and there was a faint expression. He looked like he was content. The slightest curve upon his otherwise straight lips. Maybe it was true…? What if it was true…?

Was it possible that at least some of this was Jin's doing? That perhaps he was not the bastion of innocence that Kusanagi, and Yusaku, thought he was. That perhaps he wanted to live like a toy on the ground, played with and made to be played with by others. The thought sickened Yusaku from deep within his soul, as clipped and clamped as it had become in the wake of his loss to Lightning.

Yusaku begged and pleaded that it wasn't true. This wasn't how he wanted to live. This wasn't how he wanted Jin to live. If this could be living at all. They were just members of a collection – others to come – and so much of them had been erased. He wished he could feel his heart beat once more in chest. He wished that he could feel again with his hands.

And then Yusaku noticed what he was wearing. Jin obscured most of it, but he could still see the fabric beneath him. Yusaku was still wearing his Playmaker catsuit, but it had been changed severely. The colours to the white, violet, and yellow and motifs added: the four-pointed spark. Lightning's insignia.

Thus, he really was just another thing to be collected. Another toy or doll to be had for Lightning to use and abuse whilst Jin preciously watched on, possibly approving of it all in his empty head. And, Yusaku feared, it would be like that for all eternity since he was a prisoner of artificial intelligence: the inheritor of the world.


End file.
